


homesick

by petalloso



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7561450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalloso/pseuds/petalloso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith avoided all possible encounters with Lance and his feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	homesick

**Author's Note:**

> i've jumped on the band wagon: homesick lance

Lance didn’t hide his feelings well. They all knew that, and had adjusted accordingly. If he’d saunter into the room sulking, head hanging low and eyes cast down, shoulders slumped, Pidge would task themself with rubbing his back and shoving their headphones on his head for some optimum music listening. He liked to borrow them, liked the absence of silence, and liked that Pidge cared.

Or when his knee bumped up and down violently at the dinner table, fingers fidgeting and eyes dashing, a result no less of his chronic hyperactivity, the restless mind he’d always had difficulty getting a handle of. This didn’t happen as often as when he’d been younger, more prone, but after a closely won battle or a nightmare involving his family, or never seeing home again, when it did, Shiro would place a steady hand on his unsteady one, and it would still.

Or when the temper of his mother took over and left him searing and hot, cheeks burning and fists shaking, Hunk would catch his fist before it crashed into the hard wall of the control room, and then pull him into a hug, squeeze him tight enough to hurt, long enough to force the anger to fade, and replace it instead with a steadied breath and a muttered thank you.

Keith avoided all possible encounters with Lance and his feelings.

He knew why, but didn’t want to admit it to himself. Living alone, being alone, for so many years of his life, meant Keith had spent an excessive if not unwanted amount of time understanding his own thoughts and why he had them. It was the sort of self-awareness that came with knowing himself too well, and so he knew that the very reason he avoided Lance when he was especially expressive was exactly _because_ he’d been alone, forever, and he didn’t know how to, and couldn’t, handle it.

He didn’t want to make it worse, when the bad stuff overtook Lance. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing. Keith thought it strange he’d had no trouble with the reassuring words when it was Shiro, or even Pidge or Hunk. But something about Lance unnerved him.

That’s why he backs himself into a wall, palms up defensively and with the most terrified expression on his face, when Lance does not pass him in the empty hall of the castle, but walks straight to him, and starts crying.

“Lance, what…”

“Shit,” Lance says. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s trapped Keith against the wall, just rubs the tears with the back of his fist. His voice is choked, but otherwise they are silent tears. Keith can feel his heart pumping. His hand twitches, reaching to touch Lance’s shoulder, chest, arm, something, but it stays in the air between them.

“Shit, shit. I didn’t mean to actually start crying…” He says something else, looks down and then back up with a firm expression, mouth in an equally firm line and eyes stern. The tears still come, and he doesn’t rub them away.

It’s the weirdest mix that Keith has ever seen.

“I was going to ask you for something and then I remembered by sister, then my mom, you know? Then my brothers and my cousin and my dad, too. Happens fast, the remembering. Usually can think about them without crying but then your stupid face,” Lance says, bringing a hand up to Keith’s cheek, “reminded me.”

Keith is surprised Lance was so foretelling with the reason he’s crying, but then thinks he shouldn’t really be. He wonders how often the people in his family talk, and whether it helps them to be a better one. He wonders if it would have ever worked for him, if he had one.

“My face reminded you of your family.”

“That… I mean, not specifically your face. Just this bruise,” Lance taps Keith’s cheek where it had purpled from sparring. “Candace, my sister you know, always had a bruise or two on her face. Couldn’t resist a fight.”

Keith takes a breath, watches as it rustles Lance’s bangs. “You usually combust into tears?”

“Shut up,” he says, but then laughs. “I was gonna ask you if you swiped any drinks from the kitchen. Coran won’t let me in on account I drank them all last them. I’m thirsty.” Lance whines the last point, and Keith makes a point of grimacing, shoving away Lance’s face when he leans in for emphasis.

“Fine, fine.”

Lance grins and lets him go.

“Let’s go, then.”

They sit side by side on Keith’s mattress, legs out in front of them, thighs touching, and a drink in each of their hands. Keith doesn’t say anything, and neither does Lance, for the first five minutes. The silence isn’t uncomfortable, but Lance starts crying again.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Lance says to himself, rubbing away the fast falling tears. His chest rises fast.

Keith takes the drink from his hand and places both of theirs on the floor before turning himself to face Lance. He’s half on Lance’s lap, but Lance doesn’t say anything about getting off, so Keith stays there, placing a hand on his rapidly rising chest and bringing the other up to wipe away another stray tear. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but Lance doesn’t tell him to stop.

They are silent for the next minutes that pass, Keith wiping away all the tears that fall with an intense concentration. Not until they finally stop does he notice that Lance has been staring at him the whole time, and Keith can’t read his face. He thinks to shift off of Lance, and goes to do just that, but Lance lifts a previously still arm and tugs gently at the hem of Keith’s shirt, asking in the gesture for him to stay.

“Don’t you get homesick?” He asks.

“What?” Keith tries to focus on what he’s saying, not the hand that it still tangled in his shirt, but it’s getting harder to do that.

“Keith,” Lance says, bringing his attention back. “Earth. Isn’t there anyone you miss?”

“No,” Keith answers truthfully. Lance doesn’t seem taken aback, like he knew that answer was coming, but his face gets darker in a way that doesn’t suit him.  

“What happened?”

No one has really asked before. Lance asks the question like it’s nothing, like he’s not expecting Keith to reveal some tragic backstory, which Keith didn’t think he qualified for anyhow, or to say something he hasn’t ever said before. He makes it easier to want to speak, though. Keith wants it to be easy, the saying, the words. He wants to be able to say what he means. He wants to know how.

But he doesn’t. Not yet. He thinks he could say more, eventually. He thinks he wants to tell Lance everything, and the want is disorientating in a new and strange way. He will, just not now. He’ll speak and it will be enough and one day he’ll figure out the rest of what to say, when he understands it himself.

“They left.”

 Lance accepts that with a sad smile and glistening eyes. It doesn’t look right on him, Keith thinks, a smile that isn’t anything but happy.

“Well, you have one now,” he says.

“What?”

“Us,” Lance says, grinning and letting go of Keith’s shirt, pointing to himself with triumph and boast, chest puffing. “Me and Shiro and the rest. I’ve got unlimited experience in the art of family antics, so you won’t be missing out.”

Keith looks at him, not knowing what to say. Finally, he smiles, moving to lay his head on Lance’s lap instead.

“Thanks,” he says simply. He hopes Lance will know how much he means by the word.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! x


End file.
